Dark and Bright
by Emily-in-the-glass
Summary: In the wake of WWI, Sara Stanley's daughter is sent to live with her Aunt Felicity's family in Carlisle.
1. Felicity's mail

It was a warm, hazy June afternoon. Markdale harbour mirrored the vast expanse of clear blue sky, calm and cloudless with no portents of storm. Bees hummed languidly about the blue-eyed grasses and ladies' slippers that fringed the long, red road on the manse hill, along which Geordie Frewen was walking rather absentmindedly. He was going to Carlisle, ostensibly to bring Mrs. Rev. Peter Craig her mail.

There are plenty of women in Carlisle, and out of it, who would have idled away on a hot summer day. But Mrs. Reverend Craig was noted for her industriousness; there was not a house neater, or a pantry better stocked, than that of the Carlisle Presyterian manse. It was itself a handsome clapboard building, meticulously whitewashed with sparkling windows and freshly painted gingerbread on the porch. Elms and willows shaded the yard, where the sight and scent of fresh laundy testifed Mrs. Craig's industriousness. Mrs. Craig herself was seated on the porch, taking an entirely justified rest for the first time since being up at six in the morning, but she rose again immediately as Geordie opened the gate, calling out to him that she would have tea ready in just a minute.

Mrs. Reverend Craig had the reputation of being remarkably beautiful. She was born Felicity King, and in her younger days had been the belle of the north shore. When she was a girl of eighteen a famous artist wanted to paint her portrait, and when she was nineteen she had a proposal of marriage from the Earl Grey after dancing every dance with him at a Charlottetown ball. She declined to have the portrait painted because she didn't hold with the trade - "artists and tramps are tarred with the same brush, and I think it's entirely _improper_ for my face to be hanging in goodness knows whose home," and she married instead her childhood sweetheart, Peter Craig, who had been her father's hired boy but had grown up to be a kind and honourable minister.

"Why, If I had married the Earl Grey I would never have known another decent meal in my life," Felicity was wont to say, half bragging, half complacently. "He told me he's so rich he hires his cooking done. They don't allow Countesses to cook, and do you suppose I could trust my kitchen to some french _cuisine_?"

For Mrs. Reverend Craig also had the reputation of being a remarkably good cook. Even yet, Geordie's mouth watered as she laid out her hot lemon biscuits and tripped away to fetch her rhubarb pie. He barely had a chance to explain himself, but alas, a fellow had other duties. He stopped the bustling lady in her tracks.

"No ma'am, I'm awf'lly sorry, but I can't stay for tea. I've got to go over to the Dan King's across the road."

"Hmpfff! As you please. But Kitty Marr never knew how to brew a proper pot of tea. The stuff is as thin as water, and her cups are always cold by the time she's finished pouring." Mrs. Reverend Craig uttered with disdain.

"Sorry mum, awful sorry, was jest bringing you this," he stammered, and thrust a packet of letters into her lap. He had run away bashfully before the Craigs could say thank you.

"Going to court Olivia King, no doubt," Felicity gossiped with no malicious prepense. "Kitty Marr's daughter is the beauty of the clan." she admitted with a sigh. She thought it was hardly fair that her niece resembled herself more than her own daughter did. Who knew that Dan King, whose mouth was too big, and Kitty Marr, who had been tall and gangly, could produce a golden haired creature with such a rose-leaf complexion!

"Tea-time, Cecily Jane!" she shouted impatiently through the open kitchen door.

A tall girl with brown skin and a bushel of brown curls dashed out of the spruce copse. She had a dog-eared book in hand, and grass stains on her skirt. "I told you to call me Cece," she muttered resentfully.

Cece Craig detested her prim, old fashioned name. She knew nothing of the sweet, gentle Aunt Cecily she was named after, who had died long before Cece was born. Her Uncle Dan often told her that she was as unlike Aunt Cecily as ever could be, for Cece was bold and impulsive, sunburned, freckled, and careless. She lived outdoors and in the world of books.

"I wouldn't mind so much if she kept the outdoors where it was instead of bringing it all over the house." Felicity sniffed.

Cece liked to fill her cherry vase - which she inherited from her namesake aunt - with armfuls of apple blossoms and daffodils. She caught spotted turtles and kept them in the bathtub, and sometimes - when her mother wasn't looking - she fed bits of her dinner to the toad in her pocket. She coaxed her father to let a blue jay, whom she had befriended, fly freely around in the house. But her especial love was the gray barn cat she had adopted from the King farm, raised to wax fat and luxurious, and was a magnificent, if temperamental animal.

"She's the Story Girl through and through," her father opined, as Paddy trot about her heels.

"She's a disgrace to the minister's family and Presbyterians," Mrs. William Fraser declared, when a june-bug crawled out of Cece's hat at church. Whereupon Cece turned around in her pew and stuck her tongue out at Mrs. Fraser before her mother could stop her- for wasn't Mrs. Willy Fraser just plain old Sara Ray in her girlhood, and such a crybaby that she was a disgrace to her friends? Uncle Dan had told her all about it.

Cece had come home from Queen's a week ago, but she was waiting eagerly for her brothers and cousins to return from Redmond, so that summer could begin in earnest. "Any news from the boys?" she asked offhandedly, eyeing the pile of letters on the table.

"You're too old to run around so with the boys, Cece" her mother scolded. "Why can't you chum with Olivia? She's a good, gentle little girl, and I should love to have her over at the manse more often."

Cece made a face. "Olivia is frightfully dull, and stupid."

"Cece!" Mrs. Craig was horrified.

Cece crimsoned and finished her cake as fast as she could. She pushed away the table sulkily and reached for her castaway novel.

"Now," Mrs. Craig yelled after her. "If you're going to be reading a _novel_" - Felicity uttered the syllables as if it were profanity - she did not hold with novels anymore than she did with painting pictures or play-acting, but Rev. Craig declared that there was nothing wicked in reading good literature - "you may as well read me my letters while I do my dishes. _I_ haven't time to sit at leisure and read, what with beans to be shelled and cherries to be stoned!" She glared at Cece, as if to add "And a daughter who can't help!"

Cece shifted uncomfortably - for if Felicity Craig couldn't teach her to cook, no one could - and drew the newspaper and letters into her lap.

"Do you care for the news, Ma?" she asked in a cowed voice.

"Only if there's anything that concerns us." Felicity replied.

"The Archduke Ferdinand was murdered in Europe, it's all over the headlines..."

"Seems to me the dukes and countesses of Europe are always being killed one way or another. Goodness knows whether I'd still be alive if I had married the Earl Grey. I wonder what my cousin Sara can be thinking, letting her child run wild in Paris and associating with foreigners every day."

"Is she the one I'm like?" Cece asked interestedly.

"I wouldn't boast of it, Cece. What else is there?"

"A letter from Uncle Felix in Toronto, a postcard from Uncle Bev in Japan - "

"I wonder why that blessed boy has to live amongst Chinese heathens, even if he is a journalist -"

"Japan, Ma, not China. And wouldn't it be splendid to be a journalist and travel as Uncle Bev does?"

"Bev was always queer, like the Story Girl." Felicity replied crisply. "Is that all?"

"No... here's a letter postmarked from France, from a Mme. Leroux - doesn't the name sound familiar?

"One french name sounds like just another to me, and you know I don't correspond with any frenchwomen, Cece."

"No, Ma - but isn't that - could it be - why, I do believe that it's from Aunt Sara herself!"

"Good heavens! What does she say? Sara Le - I for one can never pronounce her husband's french name, I haven't heard from Sara Stanley these seven years! What does she say?"

"It is very short, and she says only this: That she thinks it will be better for her daughter to be in Canada than Europe, and if we couldn't take her for a year or so. Oh, couldn't we, Ma!"

Cece's eyes shone with real delight at the prospect of having another girl in the house. She had heard so much of the Story Girl that she thought she was sure to like her daughter.

"So Sara's come to her senses and realized she ought to raise her daughter in a decent country. Of course I'll write her to send her here. It's a wonder the Story Girl isn't coming home herself. Although," Felicity added darkly as Cece's toad hopped across the floor, "heaven knows what will become of the manse with_ two_ little girls just like the Story Girl."


	2. A Walk in Carlisle

Cece's summer began with the promise of much merriment. Uncle Dan's three boys came home from Redmond on Monday. Cece woke at dawn every morning to take the cows with her cousins, and went over at twilight to watch them play football in old pasture. Cece was too old to play football -- much to the boys' chagrin, for she was a fast runner with excellent aim - so she sat on the silvery-gray fence and watched avidly. Sometimes Jimmy King sat out with her. He was younger and far smaller than his two tall, strapping brothers, and he was often out of breath. He thought secretly, and with much shame, that if he could trade places with Cece he would.

Cece's own brothers came home at the end of the week. Little Ray Fraser, a mousy second year at Queen's who had persisted in hanging around Cece all winter, came with his Frewen cousins the week after. Nobody knew just when Thoreau Dale came back, or whether he had come home at all, for he had arrived at dusk and slipped quietly through the Markdale woods to Golden Milestone.

The Story Girl's daughter was coming in just over a month.

"She's sailing on the _Aragon_," Cece told her brother Stephen as they went for one of their long, companionable rambles in the King woods. "She lands in New York at the end of July and will take the boat train up to the Island. She should be here in four weeks, just when August starts, and Uncle Dan is going to throw a midsummer party for her. Isn't that jolly?"

"I thought you didn't like parties much, Cee." Stephen asked.

"I don't. I hated every single one I went to at Queen's. Mother had gotten me such awkward dresses to wear for evening Queen's "socials" - though I suppose all girls' dresses are awkward, and the fancy ones even more so. I spilled coffee all over my lacey white and silver one and ruined it beyond repair. Why must girls were things that are so cumbersome, Stephen? Do you know, the only reason I'm "too old" to play football now isn't really because I'm grown up, for grown men play all the time and the better players they are too. It's because I can't run in my long dresses, and my hair would fall out now that I've put it 'up.' Isn't that silly? I wish I could hitch my skirts up to my knees, and I wish I could shingle my hair as they used to do to children!"

"'The finest clothing made is a person's skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.'" Stephen quoted. "But what makes Uncle Dan's party any better?"

"Oh - it's better just because you are here." Cece laid her head chummily against her brother's shoulder. "You and Jimmy and Dan and Alec are worth a thousand of those Queen's boys. How stupid they would become at a party! They were perfectly intelligent creatures in the lecture halls, with something interesting to say every time! And yet they would utter nothing but nonsense if they were taking you for a dance, and step on your toes. Although I will admit that the girls aren't my better. The girls I roomed with were positively silly. You can't imagine how long they spent on their toilette - or how many long they've spent talking about it for weeks on end, before and after."

"Perhaps I know a thing or two about it." Stephen's eyes twinkled. He was a handsome young man with curly black hair and dark blue eyes, and not oblivious to the attentions of Redmond girls. He knew something, too, of the art of teasing. "After all, if photographs are reliable evidence, your Queen's girls are pretty --"

"Stephen, how can you judge? I didn't think a mere pretty face mattered so - " Cece exclaimed earnestly.

" -- and look sensible and jolly." Stephen appeased. "I'm sure they are excellent creatures of their breed, with high intellect and good taste, even if they will indulge in the frivolities of fashion. You do get along with your room mates, don't you?" he added with brotherly concern.

"Oh," Cece faltered. "I do - I mean, in a way. But somehow - and you know I can't help it, Stephen, - I've always found it easier to be friends with boys than girls. I would like to have a girl friend, though. I hope The Story Girl's daughter will be my friend."

"No-one could help being friends with you, Cee o' mine." Stephen reassured her with all his brotherly affection. He was older than Cece by two years and regarded her as his especial pet. As for Cece, she thought there was no one quite as clever and sympathetic as Stephen. They were both spirited and ambitious and had "ideals" that the rest of Carlisle did not, but Stephen was even-tempered where Cece was passionate and impulsive. Cece admired her brother all the more because he was good and fair.

Presently the leafy arches overhead gave way to a sky of peerless blue, and Cece and Stephen found that they had come out just below Golden Milestone. There were wide green meadows to their left that were swathed in the afternoon sun. On their right, a little up the hill, was a silvered house hung with vines. It had the loveliest garden before it and beyond, with lacey lanes that ran off into the fir copse. It had the fragrance of a thousand blossoms that had ripened in the sun. A robin was twilling merrily in a wild cherry tree near the gate.

"Do you remember the story of the Golden Milestone that Uncle Bev told us, during his visit three years ago?" Stephen asked. "It was one of The Story Girl's tales. I wish we could hear the Story Girl tell it herself."

"Do you know, I was always sorry for Mrs. Dale until I heard about the blue room at Golden Milestone and the books of poetry with 'Alice" 's name on them, long before Mr. and Mrs. Dale were married. Mrs. Dale's name is Alice, you know, and mother used to call her 'Beautiful Alice' - and she used to say it was a shame that 'Beautiful Alice' - that is, Mrs. Dale - married 'The Awkward Man' when she was so pretty that she could have had anyone."

"Oh, our dear mother!" Stephen smiled. "She can't really understand anyone who is different from herself. And the inhabitants of Golden Milestone are different from everybody else in Carlisle - but I have always thought they were perfectly happy."

"I wonder if Thoreau is home. I am so curious about him because no one in Carlisle has seen him for ever so long - not since he began studying his doctorate at McGill. They say he has grown up to become just as shy and bookish as his father, and Roger says they are both infidels because neither of them ever darken the church doors, and they have been known to get books by mail-order on _reincarnation_."

Stephen did not smile this time. His brows furrowed at the picture of his older brother sanctimoniously casting up the Dale's misdeeds. "I am sure that is only Roger's opinion." he told Cece stiffly. His tone that implied he did not think very highly of Roger's opinion. " 'Judge not, lest ye be judged.' " he added beneath his breath.

"Roger is awfully stern and serious, isn't he? The first thing he asked me when he got home was whether I have been saying my prayers. Of course I have always said my prayers! I am fifteen years old and I have been saying them all my life. But when Roger asked me I had the most contrary urge to shout 'no! I will never say my prayers again.' Then he thought that father's grace was too short, so he has been saying now. And oh, how dull and endless he makes it! When he yowls on for half an hour, all I want to do is tear right into the steak and fling a piece at his jaw!"

They laughed helplessly at the image of Roger, attacked by flying meat and splashed with gravy. "Oh, we shouldn't," shrieked Cece remorsefully. "Do you suppose that's what theology school does to you?"

"It can't be. Father went to the seminary and he is good and jolly. Roger has always been religious, even when we were small. Plus, he doesn't like Thoreau at all. They quarrelled about Mary Magdalen one recess, and Thoreau was going to fight it out with Roger after school, but Roger said the minister's son wouldn't stoop to fight over heresy."

"Thoreau fighting!" Cece said incredulously. "I can't believe that he challenged..."

"Yes, he - s-sshh-- "Stephen hissed. There was a blue figure in the far corner of the garden, who had stood up and was now coming towards them. She waved a white bouquet. It was Beautiful Alice.

She was one of those women who could never grow old. She was straight and slender as a willow. Her hair, black and lustrous as ever, was coiled in a thick braid on the crown of her head. Her face, always very sweet, had only grown sweeter with every passing years. Her dark eyes were full of dreams, and she had a girlish voice that belied her forty years.

"Good afternoon, Cece and Stephen Craig," she called gaily. "How are your mother and father? You must tell me all the news from the manse. But first of all, you must tell me what your mother has _made to eat today."  
_  
Cece and Stephen burst into peals of laughter.

"We had hot lemon biscuits, a jelly-roll cake, and a rasberry pie of sorts for tea." Cece answered.

"A _very_ toothsome one, with wild rasberry and strawberry and rhubarb filling," Stephen added, smiling.

"It sounds splendid," Beautiful Alice avowed with shining eyes. "You see, I love to hear about good things to eat almost as well as eating them myself. Hearing Felicity's concoctions described make me both hungry and satisfied at the same time. I'm so glad you dropped by to bring me that excitement to-day."

"We have something more exciting to tell you, I believe." Stephen prompted Cece.

"Oh, yes! Mrs. Dale, who do you think is coming to Carlisle?"

Mrs. Dale put a hand on Cece's arm gently. "Don't tell me., Let me guess."

"Let me see- " she shut her eyes rapturously, already catching Cece's excitement. "It isn't - is Sara Stanley coming to visit? It can't be."

"No, but you are very close," Cece cried, amazed. "Aunt Sara's daughter is going to stay will us."

An expression of wonder burst across Beautiful Alice's face. "Of course she had told me she had a daughter years ago. But it seems so hard to imagine that Sara is a mother. I can still picture her at fifteen, standing under the cherry tree in a red dress. I suppose I must be an old woman, Cece, when girls I knew who were fifteen now have fifteen-year olds of their own. The Story Girl's daughter is fifteen, isn't she? Will you tell me everything about her?" Alice added in a conspiratorial whisper.

"She is fifteen, but I'm afraid can't tell you very much more. I don't really know what she's like at all. But I suppose you will see for yourself when she gets here in August."

"What is her name?"

"Félice Leroux. Isn't it pretty?"

"It sounds just like a chord of music," Beautiful Alice agreed dreamily. "With a name like that, violets will bloom where she has walked."

"Isn't she just lovely?" Cece asked Stephen when they had gone away with a sheaf of roses, which Beautiful Alice had given Cece. "There isn't anyone in Carlisle quite like her. She is older than mother, but she seems just like a girl."

"She is one of those who have found the secret of immortal youth. She's given you two dozen white roses, but mother isn't fond of flowers in the house at all. What are you going to do about them?"

"I guess I can smuggle them up to my room." Cece said dubiously.

"I have a better idea. Why don't we leave them on Aunt Cecily's grave?"

Cece did not often think of her namesake aunt, but she agreed with Stephen that early roses would be suited to none better than sweet Aunt Cecily. Carlisle evidently thought so, too, for when they arrived they found that Aunt Cecily's grave was heaped with flowers. She had died one June evening nearly twenty years ago, but those who had known her had not forgotten her goodness and sweetness. Every spring, the red sandstone slab was a veritable bower.

They left the little graveyard on the church hill for supper. Cece closed the white gate behind her with a feeling of great content. She was very hungry, not only for her mother's famous suppers, but for the prospect of a wonderful summer ahead. Here was a beautiful Island evening with her beloved brother beside her, her cousins across the road and a delightful new cousin on her way. Cece was glad to be alive.


End file.
